Why is TATT buying tablets for students?

BitDepth#1280

ON NOVEMBER 12, the Telecommunications Authority of TT (TATT) issued a notice on its Facebook page that it had allocated $15,144,975 for the purchase of ICT devices "for students of public schools in the country.

Digicel and TSTT will procure the devices and provide related internet services, under terms that were not disclosed.

Questions to the authority about the arrangement got answers that did not address any of the core issues (questions and responses HERE ) with this unprecedented use of the Universal Service Fund (USF).

TATT is the regulatory body with direct responsibility for managing spectrum in TT as well as the operations of telecommunications companies.

In its response to my questions about the use of the fund, TATT stated that it took “immediate actions to ensure each student had access to the tools needed to participate in the ‘new online educational system.’”

The scope of TATT's operations is defined by the related regulations of the Telecommunications Act, Chapter 47:31 and nowhere in that legal scope is there an option for the authority to spend $15 million on personal devices for school students.

The Ministry of Education has been gathering and distributing devices to needy school students, but has announced no regime for the management of these devices beyond simple donation.

According to TATT, the regulations allow it to provide tablets to "public schools" under a "Mandatory Universal Service Initiative" requirement to drive "provision of public access modes nodes and other related equipment to basic telecommunications services to be made available at all" as cited in the regulations.

But these tablets are not public access nodes, and they are not being given to public schools.

There is one exception cited in the public procurement regulations, and it is quite specific: "Special provision of approved assistive technology for persons with disabilities to support use of basic telecommunications services."

In that instance, the regulations require a detailed report on each individual to whom the device is given and to whom service is granted.

Is the Education Ministry providing this information to TATT?

The USF, which is a tax on concessionaires approved to operate by the authority, is meant to deliver internet access in areas where it is unprofitable to supply it.

In underserved areas, the authority can subsidise telephone service and internet bandwidth of undetermined speed by up to 40 per cent of commercial rates.

TATT is also governed by procurement rules, which require a competitive bidding and tendering process that is supposed to be documented and accessible to the public.

In response to questions about that requirement of the act, the authority's formal response suggested that since USF projects are only open to concessionaires, it had fulfilled that obligation by allowing both mobile networks to participate.

That is not open tendering and is, at best, an avoidance of the procurement requirement that also fails to push accountability for the purchasing process to the operators.

TATT’s use of the USF has been sparing until covid19 restrictions threw the digital divide into such sharp relief that everyone could see the chasms.

The authority is not helped by its irritatingly opaque website, which delivers little concrete information about its operations and initiatives.

The USF is a very specific fund with a carefully demarcated scope of use.

While nobody wants children to fall behind in their schooling, the situation is far from Sherwood Forest and TATT is not Robin Hood.

It is, more precisely, the Sheriff of Nottingham, with a properly articulated role as a regulator, and it must pay closer attention to the rules that govern its operations.

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there